Post removed. Forum

[fnma2jd]

Is the Lsac.org website down? It's not working on my computer or my roommate's. Have any of you guys been experiencing any problems?

down for me too


http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/lsac.org

[dosto]

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[dazedandconfused13]

I have a question. This may be relevant to some of you as well. Whether or not I will apply this year will hinge on my December LSAT score. But I cannot wait that long to start my application (I am already in an advanced stage of my personal statement and resume writing process I think). I have not asked my professors for reco/evaluation. I have been working on my application on the premise that I will get a decent score. And I want to ask my professors for a reco on the same premise, while knowing that a low score will mean I will apply only next year.

Hypothetically, if I get my professors' reco and then get a low score this year so that I end up applying next year, will their reco be on my lsac account which I can use next year or do I have to ask them again next year? It will be pretty embarrassing to ask them for the same reco next year.

Let me know. Thanks!

[dazedandconfused13]

Is the Lsac.org website down? It's not working on my computer or my roommate's. Have any of you guys been experiencing any problems?

down for me too


http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/lsac.org

Thanks!

[bombaysippin]

I have a question. This may be relevant to some of you as well. Whether or not I will apply this year will hinge on my December LSAT score. But I cannot wait that long to start my application (I am already in an advanced stage of my personal statement and resume writing process I think). I have not asked my professors for reco/evaluation. I have been working on my application on the premise that I will get a decent score. And I want to ask my professors for a reco on the same premise, while knowing that a low score will mean I will apply only next year.

Hypothetically, if I get my professors' reco and then get a low score this year so that I end up applying next year, will their reco be on my lsac account which I can use next year or do I have to ask them again next year? It will be pretty embarrassing to ask them for the same reco next year.

Let me know. Thanks!

Yes they will stay on your account to be able to use next year.

[gargoyle]

Looks like waiters has entered the "LSAC is down" temporary freak-out phase. Up next should be the most difficulty section poll and/or talk of LSAT nightmares.

Accurate diagnosis, doc-sto. Except I think LSAT nightmares was covered a couple pages back? Or was that LSAT 179 dreams...

Man I've wasted way too much time in this thread.

[koalacity]

Is it a good idea to apply to T14 schools that one does not have particular interest in for scholarship negotiation purposes? Do people normally do this? Personally I don't have much interest in NU, Mich, or Berkley, but is it a good idea to apply?

Yes, this is generally a credited idea. However, Berkeley does not give much-if any-merit-based aid. They only do matching merit scholarships (and are often stingy even with those), so I wouldn't apply to B unless you're actually interested in attending.

[koalacity]

I've actually had something on my mind for a while now which might be a bit irrelevant at this point but, if someone could give me some answer, it would leave me with some peace of mind.

The first time I prepared for the LSAT I was not familiar with TLS and I had no idea how to go about preparing so I simply bought a ton of practice exams and simply took practice exams for a few weeks leading up to the exam. With this approach I managed to usually score in the mid-160s and I ended up getting a 166 on the actual exam.

The second time around, I had a more organized approach. I had been on TLS and read a few posts about preparing for the exam so I bought the Logic Games Bible as well as the Manhattan LSAT books for the Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension sections and I worked through those in addition to taking practice exams.

The odd thing, however, is that while I felt like I was improving my understanding of the exam, this understanding didn't seem to show in the results. That is, I felt like I was getting significantly better at setting up and drawing inferences in the Logic Games and when approaching Logical Reasoning questions, I felt I could easily identify the question type and apply the proper approach to answering each type. The only section I felt I wasn't getting any better at was Reading Comprehension really. Despite this perceived improvement, however, I continued to score in the mid- to low-160s up until the day of the exam.

Now, I spent about two months preparing for the retake and I was still suffering from some timing issues especially with the Logic Games so I'm wondering: do you think I simply didn't prepare for enough time? Did anyone else have a similar experience when preparing for the retake?

I apologize for the length of this post and, like I said before, the quality of my preparation for this retake is most likely irrelevant at this point but, if someone could provide some insight into where I went wrong, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

My guess would be that because you started by taking full PTs, you probably ingrained some bad habits that are going to be tough (though certainly not impossible) to break-the consensus here is that it's better to start by drilling to master the fundamentals and then move on to full PTs, and this is one of the reasons why. I think you'll have to A) focus on fundamentals and B) put a TON of effort into reviewing your work (drills and PTs) to find out what these bad habits are. For LR drilling (and later with PTs), I looked up and wrote out explanations for why the right answer was correct and why the answer I picked (or answers I struggled to eliminate for ones I got right but thought were hard) was wrong on every question I got wrong or got right but wasn't sure on.

If you're still struggling with LG, I would recommend checking out other approaches-the LGB is okay, and used to be the gold standard like 5 years ago, but there are much better options out there now. I personally went from being terrible at LG to doing well enough on LG to get the score that I did through a combination of Velocity's LG course, the 7Sage videos (these were KEY for me, and they're free!), and Manhattan LG. A lot of people also like Blueprint's LG.

RC is generally thought to be the hardest section to improve on, but many people here have found success with the LSAT Trainer's approach to RC-I'd definitely pick it up. My personal experience with RC was that annotating slowed me down and hurt my performance-I did much better when I either did zero annotation or underlined just a few key words/sentences.

[062914123]

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[bombaysippin]

I been doing the same, but I am oblivious to everything. Now I'm curious lol where did they mention the maintenance?

[062914123]

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[bombaysippin]

I been doing the same, but I am oblivious to everything. Now I'm curious lol where did they mention the maintenance?

front page when you log in, in an announcement box

Oh like where it says stuff about admission tickets and whatever? I think I've made it a bad routine to just ignore stuff there lol

[usernotfound]

Is it a good idea to apply to T14 schools that one does not have particular interest in for scholarship negotiation purposes? Do people normally do this? Personally I don't have much interest in NU, Mich, or Berkley, but is it a good idea to apply?

Yes, this is generally a credited idea. However, Berkeley does not give much-if any-merit-based aid. They only do matching merit scholarships (and are often stingy even with those), so I wouldn't apply to B unless you're actually interested in attending.

Thanks! However, I'm still in undergrad applying so do you think Northwestern would be a good use of the application fee based on much of their class being older?

[bombaysippin]

Anyone got opinions on attaching "Why X" essays with your application for RD or keeping them and holding them off in the event of a waitlist?

I'm wondering like if you attach a "Why X" essay and then get waitlisted, would you have to find other reasons to try and write another one or a LOCI?

[062914123]

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[mellow]

Anyone got opinions on attaching "Why X" essays with your application for RD or keeping them and holding them off in the event of a waitlist?

I'm wondering like if you attach a "Why X" essay and then get waitlisted, would you have to find other reasons to try and write another one or a LOCI?

im not writing why x essays unless the school is basically asking that you write one for this reason

but why wait until you're waitlisted to send those essays when you could prevent being waitlisted in the first place by including them with the original app?

As for me, I'm not writing one for the schools that don't recommend them because I don't want to distract adcomms from the rest of my application with a potentially sucky essay.

[bombaysippin]

@melody I think a "Why X" essay wouldn't prevent an applicant from being waitlisted, if the reason for the waitlist is based on an applicant's lsat/gpa combo (not talking about YP type numbers but below a median). I feel like the "Why X" essay would be worth more once waitlisted to help get an applicant in, but I could be completely wrong....which is why I am wondering about what other people's opinions are.

Thanks for the opinions so far too btw bee and melody

Anyone remember the thread that had info on which schools would prefer you write the "Why X" essays with your application?

[062914123]

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[bombaysippin]

@melody I think a "Why X" essay wouldn't prevent an applicant from being waitlisted, if the reason for the waitlist is based on an applicant's lsat/gpa combo (not talking about YP type numbers but below a median). I feel like the "Why X" essay would be worth more once waitlisted to help get an applicant in, but I could be completely wrong....which is why I am wondering about what other people's opinions are.

Thanks for the opinions so far too btw bee and melody

Anyone remember the thread that had info on which schools would prefer you write the "Why X" essays with your application?

dont know of a particular thread for this, but off the top of my head for the t14: mich, uva, duke, penn

Ugh 1/4 done. I hate these lol.

[barrelofmonkeys]

@melody I think a "Why X" essay wouldn't prevent an applicant from being waitlisted, if the reason for the waitlist is based on an applicant's lsat/gpa combo (not talking about YP type numbers but below a median). I feel like the "Why X" essay would be worth more once waitlisted to help get an applicant in, but I could be completely wrong....which is why I am wondering about what other people's opinions are.

Thanks for the opinions so far too btw bee and melody

Anyone remember the thread that had info on which schools would prefer you write the "Why X" essays with your application?

dont know of a particular thread for this, but off the top of my head for the t14: mich, uva, duke, penn

Ugh 1/4 done. I hate these lol.

I actually ended up only writing why duke and why penn (or rather, am writing why penn). I'll write mich and uva if I get waitlisted.

[mellow]

@melody I think a "Why X" essay wouldn't prevent an applicant from being waitlisted, if the reason for the waitlist is based on an applicant's lsat/gpa combo (not talking about YP type numbers but below a median). I feel like the "Why X" essay would be worth more once waitlisted to help get an applicant in, but I could be completely wrong....which is why I am wondering about what other people's opinions are.

Thanks for the opinions so far too btw bee and melody

Anyone remember the thread that had info on which schools would prefer you write the "Why X" essays with your application?

dont know of a particular thread for this, but off the top of my head for the t14: mich, uva, duke, penn

Ugh 1/4 done. I hate these lol.

mich has a limit of 2 optional essays, so if you already have 2, that's one less to worry about.

ETA: Northwestern also likes why x essays.

[thejerseykid]

I've actually had something on my mind for a while now which might be a bit irrelevant at this point but, if someone could give me some answer, it would leave me with some peace of mind.

The first time I prepared for the LSAT I was not familiar with TLS and I had no idea how to go about preparing so I simply bought a ton of practice exams and simply took practice exams for a few weeks leading up to the exam. With this approach I managed to usually score in the mid-160s and I ended up getting a 166 on the actual exam.

The second time around, I had a more organized approach. I had been on TLS and read a few posts about preparing for the exam so I bought the Logic Games Bible as well as the Manhattan LSAT books for the Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension sections and I worked through those in addition to taking practice exams.

The odd thing, however, is that while I felt like I was improving my understanding of the exam, this understanding didn't seem to show in the results. That is, I felt like I was getting significantly better at setting up and drawing inferences in the Logic Games and when approaching Logical Reasoning questions, I felt I could easily identify the question type and apply the proper approach to answering each type. The only section I felt I wasn't getting any better at was Reading Comprehension really. Despite this perceived improvement, however, I continued to score in the mid- to low-160s up until the day of the exam.

Now, I spent about two months preparing for the retake and I was still suffering from some timing issues especially with the Logic Games so I'm wondering: do you think I simply didn't prepare for enough time? Did anyone else have a similar experience when preparing for the retake?

I apologize for the length of this post and, like I said before, the quality of my preparation for this retake is most likely irrelevant at this point but, if someone could provide some insight into where I went wrong, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

My guess would be that because you started by taking full PTs, you probably ingrained some bad habits that are going to be tough (though certainly not impossible) to break-the consensus here is that it's better to start by drilling to master the fundamentals and then move on to full PTs, and this is one of the reasons why. I think you'll have to A) focus on fundamentals and B) put a TON of effort into reviewing your work (drills and PTs) to find out what these bad habits are. For LR drilling (and later with PTs), I looked up and wrote out explanations for why the right answer was correct and why the answer I picked (or answers I struggled to eliminate for ones I got right but thought were hard) was wrong on every question I got wrong or got right but wasn't sure on.

If you're still struggling with LG, I would recommend checking out other approaches-the LGB is okay, and used to be the gold standard like 5 years ago, but there are much better options out there now. I personally went from being terrible at LG to doing well enough on LG to get the score that I did through a combination of Velocity's LG course, the 7Sage videos (these were KEY for me, and they're free!), and Manhattan LG. A lot of people also like Blueprint's LG.

RC is generally thought to be the hardest section to improve on, but many people here have found success with the LSAT Trainer's approach to RC-I'd definitely pick it up. My personal experience with RC was that annotating slowed me down and hurt my performance-I did much better when I either did zero annotation or underlined just a few key words/sentences.

It seems that I could have benefited from some more drilling especially for LR and LG. Thanks for the reply. I'll see how I did this time around on the exam because I did feel that it went a lot better than most of the practice exams I took so there's always the chance I got a little lucky but, if I do decide to go for my third retake, I now have a better idea of how to go about improving.

[Otunga]

@melody I think a "Why X" essay wouldn't prevent an applicant from being waitlisted, if the reason for the waitlist is based on an applicant's lsat/gpa combo (not talking about YP type numbers but below a median). I feel like the "Why X" essay would be worth more once waitlisted to help get an applicant in, but I could be completely wrong....which is why I am wondering about what other people's opinions are.

Thanks for the opinions so far too btw bee and melody

Anyone remember the thread that had info on which schools would prefer you write the "Why X" essays with your application?

dont know of a particular thread for this, but off the top of my head for the t14: mich, uva, duke, penn

Ugh 1/4 done. I hate these lol.

mich has a limit of 2 optional essays, so if you already have 2, that's one less to worry about.

ETA: Northwestern also likes why x essays.

Do the schools like the extra effort? I would think there's some intrinsic value to that since I doubt many people have compelling reasons to go to any one particular school.

[retaking23]

It's been one week and it is safe to say that my detoxification is complete.

[muzzy]

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